Reply #163: It can be done. The Republican rightwing nutcases did it.

[tblue37]

They wanted to purge the Republican moderates or at least control them so they would have to vote with the rightwing nutcase power-brokers. They were patient and relentless--and they won. They screwed themselves in the process, because they really are nuts, so once they had power they did crazy things with it, so crazy that even their media lapdogs can't keep the lid on all of it.

But what they did is proof that true believers can take over their own party, if they really work at it. Our problem is that so many of our strong progressives are unwilling to be patient and keep working. They want it all right now, or they will take all their votes and go home.

We won't get everything right now. We can't. First we need an unassailable Dem majority and a Dem president, as well as a strong progressive bloc on the SC. For that we have to hold our noses if need be and vote for whoever is nominated by the Dem Party. Obviously, we should work our asses off to make sure we get a good nominee, but even if the nominee is one any given Dem voter might not prefer, we still need to pull together to elect him/her and to provide a strong Dem majority in both houses of Congress to work with him/her.

But we also need to be running (and funding) strong progressive primary challengers to the DLC and Blue Dog Dems, so our next Dem majority will be a progressive Dem majority. We need to focus on persuading deep pocket liberals to fund media buys and think tanks to perform the same function on our side that Scaife and Murdoch and their ilk perform for the wingnut side.

We need to take back the Democratic party from the corporatists. But that won't all happen in one election cycle, and to refuse to back Dem nominees if they aren't 100% pure won't get us on the path toward regaining control of our party and our country.